Learning from the Left: Children's Literature, the Cold War, and Radical Politics in the United States

by Julia L. Mickenberg

At the height of the Cold War, dozens of radical and progressive writers, illustrators, editors, librarians, booksellers, and teachers cooperated to create and disseminate children's books that challenged the status quo. Learning from the Left provides the first historic overview of their work. Spanning from the 1920s, when both children's book publishing and American Communism were becoming significant on the American scene, to the late 1960s, when youth who had been raised on many of the books in this study unequivocally rejected the values of the Cold War, Learning from the Left shows how "radical" values and ideas that have now become mainstream (including cooperation, interracial friendship, critical thinking, the dignity of labor, feminism, and the history of marginalized people), were communicated to children in repressive times. A range of popular and critically acclaimed children's books, many by former teachers and others who had been blacklisted because of their political beliefs, made commonplace the ideas that McCarthyism tended to call "subversive." These books, about history, science, and contemporary social conditions-as well as imaginative works, science fiction, and popular girls' mystery series-were readily available to children: most could be found in public and school libraries, and some could even be purchased in classrooms through book clubs that catered to educational audiences. Drawing upon extensive interviews, archival research, and hundreds of children's books published from the 1920s through the 1970s, Learning from the Left offers a history of the children's book in light of the history of the history of the Left, and a new perspective on the links between the Old Left of the 1930s and the New Left of the 1960s.

Winner of the Grace Abbott Book Prize of the Society for the History of Children and Youth

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Childrens, Politics, Academic

408 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Julia Mickenberg is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of the award-winning Learning from the Left: Children's Literature, the Cold War, and Radical Politics in the United States and coeditor of Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children's Literature.

Reviews

[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be sure, there were (and still very much are) many Leftist radicals involved in children's literature, but I felt that there were a number of times here that the author overreached in her desire to paint authors and, more importantly, their books with the "radical" or "Leftist" brush. To decide that anything promoting the theory of evolution, or scientific inquiry, or an "appreciation of nature's order, design, and movement" is entirely irreconcilable with a non-Leftist viewpoint doesn't seem honest. Not all conservatives are creationists, and surely even religious believers can celebrate the manifold beauties of nature while they admit (even if only tacitly) that it all goes back originally to God.

[Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Excellent. Mickeberg argues that a section of 1930s era radicals went "underground" by becoming authors, publishers, and promoters for children's literature in the 1940s and 1950s, producing books that eventually had an impact on the social movements of the 1960s.

[Jennifer Colby · Rating 2 out of 5]

What an interesting idea for a book. I'll be reading it this weekend. I can't wait.

[Saroon · Rating 5 out of 5]

definitely going to come back to this one more than once!

[Doni · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book combines many of my interests: childrens' literature, radical politics, science education, cold war culture, antiracism, and the publishing process.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this as part of my research on science fairs and the cold war. Enjoyable and informative!

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I'd written this book. Wow. But, now I'm excited to revise my book, so I guess there is a payoff to this envy.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

definitely going to come back to this one more than once!